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STEPHEN  Bo  WEEKS 

cuss  OF  1886;  PKD.  TIE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY 


OF  THE 


TIE  WEEKS  COLIJSCTIKOIN 

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be  taken  from  the 
Library  building. 


Form  No.  471 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2012  witii  funding  from 

University  of  Nortii  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://archive.org/details/politicalsocialsOOvanc 


THE  POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  SOUTH  DORIM  THE  WAR, 


A    LECTURE 


DELIVERED   BEFORE 


John  A.  Andrew  Post, 


IsTo.     15,     a-.    -A..    T^., 


In  Boston,  Massacliusetts,  Dec.  8,  1888, 


SENATOR   Z.    B.  VANCE, 


OF  NORTH   CAROLINA. 


"Let  us  read  the  inscription  on  ilie  other  side  of  tlie  shield." 


WASHINGTON,  T).   C. 
R.  O.  POLKINHdllN,  PRINTER. 
1886. 


THE  POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  SOUTH  DURINS  THE  WAR, 


A    LECTURE 


DELIVERED   BEFORE 


John  A.  Andrew  Post, 


3^0.  ±5,  3-.  .^.  IS., 


In  Boston,  Massachusetts,  Dec.  8,  1886, 


SENATOR   Z.    B.  VANCE, 


OF  NORTH   CAROLINA, 


"Let  us  read  the  inscription  on  the  other  side  of  the  shield." 


WASHINGTOK,  D.   C. 
R.  0.  POLKINHOKN,  PRINTEK. 
1886. 


V  >:>-9 


The  Political  and  Social  South  during  the  War. 


My  presence  here  to-night,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  occasions  me  a  de- 
gree of  embarrassment.  I  was  prominently  involved  in  the  affairs 
about  which  I  propose  to  speak,  having  taken  an  active  part  in  both 
the  military  and  civil  transactions  of  my  State  during  ihe  period  of 
war.  On  the  one  hand  I  am  under  the  duress  of  your  hospitality, 
which  tempts  me  to  say  the  things  which  would  prove  most  agreea- 
ble to  you  ;  on  the  other  hand,  I  somewhat  fear  that,  if  I  should  be  toa 
plain  spoken,  I  might  become  liable  to  the  charge  of  abusing  the  privi- 
leges of  a  guest.  Should  I  fail  in  properly  avoiding  either  extreme  I 
beg  you  to  give  me  credit  for  good  intentions  at  least.  I  honestly  desire 
to  speak  the  simple  truth  as  it  appears  to  me.  This  I  believe  is  what 
you  wish  to  hear  !  [Cries,  "  that's  what  we  want."]  Necessarily  my 
remarks  will  be  discursive  and  with  no  pretension  to  the  preciseness 
and  continuity  of  narration  which  should  characterize  a  historical 
essay.  I  shall  endeavor  to  entertain  you  for  a  brief  space  with  the 
ideas  and  observations  of  occurrences  as  they  appeared  to  a  Southern 
man  concerning  the  great  civil  war. 

It  is  proper  that  you  should  hear  the  inscription  read  upon  the 
other  side  of  the  shield. 

This  generation  is  yet  too  near  to  the  great  struggle  to  deal  with  it 
in  the  true  historic  spirit.  Yet  it  is  well  enough  for  you  to  remember 
that  the  South  is  quite  as  far  removed  from  it  as  is  the  North  ;  and 
the  North  has  industriously  undertaken  from  the  beginning  tO' 
write  the  history  of  that  contest  between  the  sections,  to  set  forth  its 
causes  and  to  justify  its  results, — ^and  naturally  in  the  interest  of  the 
victorious  side.  It  is  both  wise  and  considerate  of  you  to  let  the  los- 
ing side  be  heard  in  your  midst.  If  you  should  refuse  to  do  so  it  will 
nevertheless  be  heard  in  time,  before  that  great  bar,  the  public  opin- 
ion of  the  world,  whose  jurisdiction  you  cannot  avoid,  and  whose 
verdict  you  cannot  unduly  influence.  Neither  side  acts  wisely  in  at- 
tempting to  forestall  that  verdict ! 

It  is  well  to  remember,  too,  that  epithets  and  hard  names,  which  as- 
sume the  guilt  that  is  to  be  proven,  will  not  serve  for  arguments  for 
the  future  Bancrofts  and  Hildredths  of  the  Republic,  except  for  the 
purpose  of  warning  them  against  the  intemperate  partiality  of  their 
authors. 

The  modest  action  of  the  common  law  should  be  imitated  in  the 
treatment  of  historic  questions,  which  considers  every  accused  person 
as  innocent  until  his  guilt  is  proven.  Murder  is  treated  as  simply 
homicide  until  there  is  proof  that  the  killing  was  felonious. 

In  treating,  for  example,  of  all  questions  pertaining  to  the  war,  you 
assume  the  guilt  of  your  adversaries  at  the  outset.  You  speak  of  the 
secession  movement  as  a  rebellion,  and  you  characterize  ad  who  par- 
ticipated in  it  as  "rebels  and  traitors!"  Your  daily  literature,  as 
well  as  your  daily  conversation,  teems  with  it.  Your  school  histories 
and  books  of  elementary  instruction  impress  it  in  almost  every  pag& 


upon  the  young.  Your  laws,  State  and  Federal,  have  enacted  the 
terms.  Yet  every  lawyer  and  intelligent  citizen  among  you  must  be 
well  aware  that  in  a  technical  and  legal  sense  there  uins  no  rebellion, 
and  there  were  no  rebels  !  Should  this  not  be  admitted,  however,  I 
am  sure  there  will  be  no  denial  of  the  fact  that  you  once  had  the  op- 
portunity of  obtaining  an  authoritative  decision  of  the  highest  court, 
not  only  of  the  United  States,  but  ot  the  world,  on  this  very  question 
— and  that  opportunity  was  not  embraced. 

I  hope  you  will  not  be  alarmed  ;  it  is  not  my  intention  to  make  you 
listen  to  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  right  of  secession.  I  only  wish 
to  remind  you  of  some  of  i\xvx)r .ma  facte  reasons  why  the  people  of 
the  North — and  of  Massachusetts  in  particular — should  not  assume 
the  verdict  of  history  in  their  favor  when  they  declined  to  test  the 
verdict  of  the  law.     [Applause] 

In  attempdng  to  withdraw  herself  from  the  Union  of  the  States  by 
repealing,  on  the  20th  of  May,  1861,  the  ordinance  by  the  adoption  of 
which  she  had  entered  the  Union  on  the  21st  of  November,  1789, 
against  whom  and  what  did  North  Carolina  rebel  ?  To  whom  had  she 
sworn  allegiance?  Certain'y  to  nobody;  to  no  Government;  to  noth- 
ing but  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Was  she  violating  that 
oath  when  she  thus  withdrew  ?  When  Virginia  ard  New  York  re- 
served, upon  their  accession  to  the  Constitution,  their  right  to  with- 
draw from  the  same,  and  declared  that  tlie  powers  therein  granted 
might  be  resumed  whenever  the  same  shall  be  perverted  to  "  their  in- 
jury or  oppression,"  did  those  Slates  reserve  the  light  to  commit  trea- 
son ?  When  Massachusetts  openly  threatened  to  separate  from  the 
Union  upon  the  admission  of  Louisiana  as  a  State,  was  she  conscious 
that  she  was  threatening  treason  and  rebellion  ?  When  her  Legisla- 
ture, in  1803,  "  resolved  that  the  annexation  of  Louisiana  to  the  Union 
transcends  the  Constitutional  power  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,"  and  that  it  "formed  anew  Confederacy  to  which  the  States 
united  by  the  former  compact  are  not  bound  to  adhere;"  was  not 
that  a  declaration  that  secession  was  a  Constitutional  remedy  ?  Again, 
the  same  principle  was  proclaimed  by  the  authority  of  Massachusetts 
in  the  Hartford  Convention,  where  it  was  declared  *'  that  when  emer- 
gencies occur  which  are  either  beyond  the  reach  of  judicial  tribunals 
or  too  pressing  to  admit  of  delay  incident  to  their  forms,  States  which 
have  no  common  umpire  must  be  their  own  judges  and  execute  their 
own  decisions."  Wi+h  such  a  record,  to  which  might  be  added  page 
after  page  of  corroborating  quotation  from  her  statesmen  and  her  ar- 
chives, should  not  the  ancient  commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  be  a 
little  modest  in  denouncing  as  "  traitors  "  those  whose  sin  consisted 
in  the  following  of  her  example  ?  It  has  been  said  that  the  ground 
work  and  essence  of  the  doctrine  of  secession  was  laid  in  the  Virginia 
resolutions  of  17&8,  of  which  Mr.  Madison,  the  leading  spirit,  the 
Morning  Star  of  the  convention  which  formed  the  Constitution,  was 
the  author.  If  so,  let  it  be  remembered  that  these  resolutions  were 
submitted  to  every  State  in  the  then  Union,  of  course,  including  Massa- 
chusetts ;  were  expressly  or  tacitly  approved  by  all,  and  disapproved 
by  none. 

Indeed,  it  may  be  said  generallv  that  during  the  period  of  discussion 
concerning  the  adoption  of  the  Constituti  m  by  the  several  States,  it 
was  taken  for  granted  that  any  State  becoming  dissatisfied  might  with- 
draw from  the  compact, /i9?'  cause  of  which  she  was  to  be  her  own 
judge.  The  old  articles  of  Confederation  declared  that  the  Union 
ormed  thereunder  should  be  perpetual;  this  clause  was  purposely 


and  after  discussion,  left  out  of  the  new  Constitution.  The  great 
danger  apprehended  by  the  statesmen  of  ^that  day  was  that  the  Fed- 
eral Government  would  gradually  encroach  upon  and  absorb  the 
rights  of  the  States.  In  deference  to  this  fear  the  Xth  Amendment 
was  adopted,  chiefly  on  the  urgent  instigation  of  Massachusetts,  ex- 
pressly reserving  to  the  States  all  rights  not  delegated.  Still  these 
fears  remained.  In  faci  these  encroachments  upon  the  rights  of 
States  have  constituted  for  three-fourths  of  a  century  the  great  dis- 
tinguishing subject  of  contention  between  American  statesmen;  dur- 
ing all  of  which  time,  it  was  claimed  that  secession  was  a  Constitu- 
tional remedy  therefor.  If  it  had  been  understood  that  over  the  doors 
of  the  Constitution  were  written  nulla  restigiu  retrursum;  ihat  the 
State  which  entered  there  could  never  more  depart  thence,  whatever 
might  be  the  injuries  and  oppressions  inflicted  upon  her,  how  many 
States  would  have  entered  therein  ?  What  would  jealous,  sensitive 
Massachusetts,  Virginia,  North  Carolina  have  said  to  such  a  proposi- 
tion ?  Would  they  have  subjected  their  citizens  to  a  condition  of 
things  wherein  North  Carolina  for  example  could  have  hung  a  man 
in  her  borders  if  he  refused  to  figbt  for  her,  and  Massachusetts  and 
the  others  could  have  hung  him  if  he  did  ? 

The  essence  of  all  crime  is  to  be  found  in  the  criminal  intent.  Now 
the  object  of  these  brief  references  to  the  doctrine  of  secession  is  to 
ask  you  and  the  conservative,  legal  sentiment  of  the  Northern  people 
how  you  could  convict  and  execute  a  man  for  the  intentional  com- 
mission of  a  crime,  when  the  greatest  intellects  of  the  whole  American 
people  held  not  been  able  to  determine  that  the  act  committed  was 
a  crime;  when  the  act  committed  had  been  pronounced  a  Constitu- 
tional right,  an  essential  muniment  of  freedom,  by  legislatures  of 
great  States,  by  along  line  of  great  and  glorious  statesmen;  by  primary 
assemblages  of  the  people,  by  conventions  of  great  political  parties, 
whose  ennciations  received  again  and  again  the  endorsement  of  a 
majority  of  the  American  people  at  the  polls  ;  when  the  Constitution 
itself  was  silent  as  to  express  words,  and  when  no  court  of  law  had 
ever  found  by  implication  or  legal  deduction  that  this  act  was  a  crime  ! 
The  idea  of  holding  the  citizen  up  to  all  the  legal  penalties  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  treason  under  such  circumstances  is  revolting  to  our 
sense  of  human  justice.  Now  if  you  would  not  or  could  not  thus  in- 
flict upon  him  the  severe  penalties  of  law,  is  it  just,  is  it  fair,  is  it 
christian  charity  to  a'-sume  his  guilt  and  visit  upon  him  socially  and 
politically  all  the  odium  of  one  actually  condemned;  so  far,  as  daily, 
hourly  iteration  can  do  it  ?  May  we  not  fairly  retort  upon  you  that 
if  secession  be  indeed  a  crime— you  taught  it  to  us.  Sir  Edward  Coke 
says  of  copy-hold  tenures,  that  though  of  base  descent,  they  are  of  a 
most  ancient  house;  we  can  say  here  that  though  secession  be  an  in- 
famous doctrine,  yet  it  had  a  most  illustrious  origin,  Virginia  and 
Massachusetts.     [Loud  applause.]. 

Oh,  wise  and  patriotic  enemy  of  secession  who  fought  that  monster 
by  a  "substitute,"  and  who  enriched  yourself  by  speculation^on  the 
distresses  and  confusions  of   war,  spare  us!  [Laughter]. 

Oh,  brave,  true  soldiers  of  the  Union,  and  all  you  people  who  had 
honest  convictions  of  the  unwisdom  of  our  acts,  ye  who  fought  and 
sacrificed  for  love  of  country  and  its  fair  autonomy,  spare  us,  who 
were  equally  brave,  equally  honest,  but  not  equally  fortunate! 

Again,  my  friends,  we  of  the  South  have  most  serious  cause  to  com- 
plain of  you  in  reference  to  your  efforts  to  forestall  his  tory  in  regard  to 
the  causes  which  led  to  secession  and  war.     It  is  written  :  ' '  Thou  shalt 


6 

mot  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbor."  You  say  that  it  was 
slavery,  and  slavery  alone,  that  caused  the  war.  In  your  literature  it 
is  spoken  of  as  the  "slave-holders-rebellion."  A  false  shot  out  of 
both  barrels  !  Slavery  was  the  occasion,  not  the  cause  of  war.  You 
put  us  in  the  position  not  only  of  traitors  and  rebels  but  of  becoming 
such  for.  the  privilege  of  holding  human  beings  in  bondage,  thereby 
heaping  upon  us  all  the  reproach  and  opprobrium  that  such  a  thing 
renders  possible.  This  is  at  once  a  misrepresentation  and  an  injustice. 
The  great  majority  of  the  people  of  the  South  entertained  in  the  ab- 
stract as  much  repugnance  to  slave-holding  as  you  did. 

Their  fault  in  respect  to  slavery,  as  with  secession,  was  not  all  to  be 
charged  upon  them.  As  usual,  Massachusetts  comes  in  for  the  lion's 
share.  Boston  and  Providence  slavers  vexed  the  seas  in  their  ungodly 
search  for  kidnapped  Africans  to  be  bought  in  exchange  for  New 
England  rum  and  sold  to  the  Southern  Plantations,  against  which  Old 
Yirginia  and  other  Southern  States  protested. 

Nay,  by  reference  to  the  history  of  the  constitution  it  will  be  seen 
that  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut 
united  with  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  in  postpon- 
ing the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade  for  twenty  years,  in  the  for- 
mation of  that  iostrument :  the  Southern  States  because  they  wanted 
the  slaves,  the  Northern  States  because  they  had  large  shipping  in- 
terests engaged  in  the  profit  of  buying  and  carrying  them  to  market. 
"The  horrors  of  the  middle  passage"  belonged  to  you;  we  only 
bought  your  wares.  The  desire  to  protect  her  infant  industries  was 
thus  manifested  even  at  that  early  day  against  her  ancient  rival, 
England,  whose  "pauper  labor"  was  engaged  in  the  same  trade. 

So,  too,  a  fierce  arraignraeot  of  King  George  III,  for  forcing  the 
slave  trade  upon  the  colonies  was  inserted  by  Mr.  Jefferson  in  the  origi- 
nal draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  was  striken  out  at  the 
instigation  of  the  Eastern  States  as  well  as  Southern,  because  it  was  felt 
to  be  a  reflection  on  citizens  of  Massachusetts  and  of  Rhode  Island  en- 
gaged in  the  slave  trade.  Slavery  and  Ihe  slave  trade  were  in  full  and 
cruel  operation  in  Massachusetts  before  there  was  a  white  man's  home 
in  North  Carolina,  a  slave  trade  which  not  only  imported  Africans,  but 
exported  Africans,  Indians,  and,  worst  of  all,  our  own  race — the 
people  of  our  own  blood  !  How  slavery  grew  and  ramified  through 
all  the  South,  under  the  natural  stimulus  of  climate  and  productions, 
and  how  the  abstract  sentiment  against  it  was  extinguished  by  the 
political  necessities  of  the  times,  arising  from  the  fierce  attacks  made 
upon  it  by  the  States  to  whose  climate  and  pursuits  it  was  unsuited, 
and  who  therefore  sold  out,  quit  business  and  turned  philanthropist! 
All  this  is  an  old,  old  story;  and  I  only  allude  to  it  to  remmd  you  that 
you  are  not  at  liberty  to  cast  the  first  stone.     [Applause.] 

The  ownership  of  slaves  and  the  regulation  of  the  system  wei'e  left 
to  the  exclusive  control  of  the  States,  not  only  by  the  Tenth  amendment 
which  reserved  to  them  all  rights  and  powers  not  expressly  granted  to 
the  Federal  government,  but  its  existence  was  specially  recognized 
and  its  safety  specially  provided  for  in  the  constitution  itself.  It  be- 
ing a  matter,  therefore,  of  purely  domestic  concern,  wholly  within  the 
control  of  the  States,  the  attempt  to  interfere  with  it  by  the  Federal 
government  in  any  shape,  directly  or  indirectly,  was  justly  regarded 
as  a  violation  of  constitutional  right,  and  injurious  to  that  perfect 
equality  of  the  States  guaranteed  by  the  constitution.  That  is  why 
we  went  to  war.  Slavery  happened  to  be  the  particular  item  or  in- 
stance wherein  this  equality  was  assailed;  and  in  resistance  to  this  at- 


tempt  of  the  Federal  Government  to  interfere  within  a  State  in  a  mat- 
ter which  peculiarly  pertained  to  that  State  we  resorted  to  secession  as 
a  peaceable  remedy.  The  thing  which  made  our  forefathers  hesi- 
tate to  adopt  the  constitution  at  all,  had  here  come  upon  us,  and  the 
remedy  which  our  forefathers — and  yours — had  suggested  as  the 
only  one  proper  or  possible,  was  naturally  resorted  to. 

Had  it  been  conceded  by  submission  that  the  Federal  government 
could  interfere  in  the  matter  of  slavery,  we  would  have  been  logically 
precluded  from  resistance  to  like  interference  for  any  other  cause 
whatever,  and  there  was  an  end  to  the  rights  and  equality  of  the 
States  under  the  constitution  forever;  and  therefore  an  end  to  the 
freedom,  sovereignty,  and  independence  of  each  State  which,  accord- 
ing to  all  writers  and  statesmen,  north  and  south,  was  retained  by  them 
when  they  acceded  to  the  constitution. 

It  was  a  constitutional  principle  for  which  we  fought ;  not  merely 
the  right  to  hold  slaves.  So  far  as  I  have  the  right  to  speak  for  the 
people  of  North  Carolina,  I  believe  that  with  them  this  war  was  one 
for  principle  as  purely  and  simply  as  was  the  war  of  1776  ;  as  sacred 
a  principle  as  that  which  made  Boston  men  disguise  themselves  and 
throw  the  tea  overboard  (by  the  way  the  first  kukluxina;  ever  known 
in  America),  and  made  the  North  Carolina  militia  of  the  Cape  Fear 
openly  and  without  disguise  seize  the  British  Stamp-Master,  destroy 
his  stamps  and  force  him  to  take  an  oath  not  to  execute  the  stamp  act 
in  that  colony. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  the  Federal  government  was  not  interfere- 
ing  with  or  threatening  slavery  at  the  time  of  secession. 

Northern  States  were  openly  violating  the  provisions  of  the  consti- 
tution relative  to  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves.  A  president  had  just 
been  elected  on  the  principle  of  avowed  hostility  to  slavery,  by  a  strict 
sectional  vote.  No  one  doubts  now  or  could  doubt  then,  that  a  war 
upon  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States,  way;ed  in  the  name  of  slavery, 
was  the  animating  motive  of  the  great  party  which  had  just  come  into 
power.  No  pretext  could  disguise  it.  So  late  as  June,  1862,  a  Con- 
gress composed  entirely  of  representatives  of  the  adhering  States, 
solemnly  declared  that  the  Federal  government  had  no  power  to 
abolish  slavery  and  that  the  war  was  waged  exclusively  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union.  In  six  months  thereafter  slavery  was  abolished 
all  the  same.  The  real  point  of  attack  was  then  disclosed.  Do  not 
misunderstand  me,  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  term  "rebel"  in  connec- 
tion with  the  part  I  bore  in  those  events,  neither  are  my  people.  I  am 
simply  pleading  for  historic,  legal  truth.  The  fair  Goddess  Liberty 
was  born  of  rebellion,  and  was  baptised  in  the  blood  of  rebels.  It  is 
the  only  remedy  for  wrong  under  absolute  governnient  ;  in  all  ages  it 
has  been  the  last  hope  of  freedom.  I  have  said  this  much  in  the  earn- 
est desire  that  it  might  call  your  attention  to  an  injustice,  which  you 
are  daily  perpetrating,  not  for  the  purpose  of  reviving  an  issue  which 
has  been  settled.  Now  that  it  has  been  settled  in  a  manner  satisfac- 
tory to  you,  you  can  aiiord  to  do  justice  to  the  motives  and  the  con- 
duct of  your  opponents, — you  can  afford  to  accept  the  late  war  as  an 
appeal  to  arms  to  decide  a  disputed  question  of  constitutional  construc- 
tion,—one  of  the  few  vital  questions  which  the  wisdom  of  the  fathers  did 
not  make  sufficiently  clear.  That  will  be  the  verdict  of  history  when 
your  passions  and  mine  shall  have  been  forever  extinguished  in  death. 
Need  you  say  anything  more  ?  Does  your  reputation  or  vindication 
require  that  you  should  asperse  your  adversaries  ?  I  trow  not.  The 
preservation  of  the  Union  with  all  which  that  means,  the  settlement 


of  a  great  constitutional  question,  which  threatened  its  safety,  is  your 
all-sufficient  justification  and  your  rightful  glory.  [Applause].  You 
add  not  a  spark  to  that  splendid  radiance,  which  gathered  around  the 
defenders  of  the  Union,  by  casting  abuse  upon  those  whom  you  over- 
came. Here,  let  me  remark,  that  a  new  duty  is  imposed  ujDon  you  by 
the  ;^ery  fact  of  your  great  achievement  ;  now  that  your  swords  have 
definitely  settled  the  question  that  the  Union  is  indissoluble;  that  no 
State  for  whatever  cause  has  any  right  to  withdraw  therefrom;  that 
secession  is  not  a  constitutional  remedy  for  grievances,  it  devolves 
upon  you  as  just  men  to  see  that  by  a  strict  adherence  to  the  condi- 
tions of  the  Union  no  State  shall  have  reasonable  cause  to  complain. 
[Applause] 

The  people  of  North  Carolina,  more,  perhaps,  than  those  of  any  of 
the  eleven  seceding  States,  were  devoted  to  the  Union.  They  had 
always  regarded  it  with  sincerest  reverence,  and  affection,  and 
they  left  it  slowly  and  with  sorrow.  They  were  actuated  by  an  hon- 
est conviction — 

1st.  That  their  constitutional  rights  were  endangered,  not  by  the 
mere  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  others  did,  but  by  the  course  which 
subsequent  events  were  compelled  to  take  in  consequence  of  the  ideas 
which  were  behind  him; 

2d.  By  the  force  of  neighborhood  and  association; 

3d.  By  a  fatality  of  events  which  ordinary  prudence  could  not 
have  avoided.  The  Union  men  of  that  State,  of  whom  I  was  one, 
whatever  may  have  been  their  doubts  of  the  propriety  of  secession, 
were  unanimous  in  the  opinion  that  it  was  neither  right  nor  safe  to 
permit  the  General  Government  to  coerce  a  State.  In  their  argu- 
ments therefore  with  the  secession  advocates  they  logically  look  the 
position  that  should  coercion  be  attempted  they  would  unite  with 
the  secessionists  in  resisting  it  During  the  last  session  of  Congress, 
which  preceded  the  outbreak,  the  winter  of  18G0  and  '61,  the  tjnion 
members  of  Congress  from  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  North  Carolina  and 
Virginia,  after  earnest  and  anxious  consultation,  constituted  a  com- 
mittee to  wait  upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  then  in  the  city  prepara- 
tory to  bis  inauguration,  and  present  him  their  views  in  regard  to 
the  situation.  They  did  so,  and  my  colleague,  the  Hon.  John  A. 
Gilmer,  gave  me  the  results  of  their  interview.  It  was  represented  to 
Mr.  Lincoln  by  them  that  the  Cotton  States  proper  alone  could  not 
make  any  effectual  headway  in  maintaining  secession  without  the  aid 
of  the  great  border  States  of  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Virginia,  Mary- 
land, North  Carolina  and  Tennessee;  that  the  population  of  those 
States  was  devoted  to  the  Union,  but  could  not  be  held  to  that  position 
should  coercion  be  attempted  and  the  blood  of  their  southern  brethren 
be  shed.  They  expressed  to  him  the  opinion  that  the  secession  move- 
ment could  be  checked  and  finally  broken  down  if  those  great  States 
could  be  kept  out  of  it.  Mr.  Lincoln  appeared  fully  impressed  with 
the  wisdom  of  these  views  and  promised  that  if  possible  he  would 
avoid  the  attempt  'at  coercion.  In  his  inaugural  address  he  commit- 
ted himself  only  to  the  announcement  that  his  duty  would  compel 
him  to  hold  and  possess  the  public  property  of  the  United  States.  I 
quote  from  memory.  With  this  promise  and  these  hopes  the  Union 
Congressmen  trom  these  States  returned  to  their  homes  and  began 
their  canvassings  for  re  election.  They  promised  ihe  people  that  no 
force  would  be  attempted,  and  if  there  should  be,  they  could  and 
would  no  longer  hold  out  for  the  Union.     As  precarious  as  this  posi- 


tion  was,  such  was  the  temper  of  the  Soul  hern  people,  it  was  all  that 
the  situation  afforded  even  in  States  so  conservative. 

But  when  Fort  Sumpter  was  fired  upon,  immediately  followed  by 
Mr.  Lincoln's  call  for  "  volunteers  to  suppress  the  insurrection,"  the 
whole  situation  was  changed  instantly.  The  Union  men  had, every 
prop  knocked  from  under  them,  and  by  stress  of  their  own  position 
were  plunged  into  the  secession  movement.  For  myself,  I  will  say, 
that  I  was  canvassing  for  the  Union  with  all  my  strength;  I  was 
addressing  a  large  and  excited  crowd,  large  numbers  of  whom 
were  armed,  and  literally  had  my  arm  extended  upward  in 
pleading  for  peace  and  the  Union  of  our  Fathers,  when  the  tel- 
egraphic news  was  announced  of  the  firing  on  Sumpter  and  the 
Piesident's  call  lor  seventy-five  thousand  volunteers.  When  mv  hand 
came  down  from  that  impassioned  gesticulation,  it  fell  slowly  and 
sadly  by  the  side  of  a  Seci  ssionist  I  immediately,  with  altered  voice 
and  manner  called  upon  the  assembled  multitude  to  volunteer,  not 
to  fight  against  but  for  i^outh  Carolina.  I  said  :  If  war  must  come  I 
preferred  to  be  with  my  own  people.  If  we  had  to  shed  blood  I  pre- 
ferred to  shed  Northern  rather  than  Southern  blood.  If  we  had  to 
slay  I  had  rather  slay  strangers  than  my  own  kindred  and  neighbors; 
and  that  it  was  better,  whether  right  or  wrong,  that  communities  and 
States  should  go  together  and  face  the  horrors  of  war  in  a  body — shar- 
ing a  common  fate,  rather  than  endure  the  unspeakable  calamities  of 
internicine  strife.  To  those  at  all  acquainted  with  the  atrocities 
which  were  inflicted  upon  the  divided  communities  of  Missouri,  Ken- 
tucky and  Tennessee,  the  humanity  of  my  action  will  be  apparent.  I 
wentwiih  and  shared  the  fate  of  the  people  of  my  native  State,  hav- 
ing first  done  all  I  could  to  pres-erve  the  peace  and  secure  the  unanimity 
of  the  people  to  avert,  as  much  as  possible,  the  calamities  of  war.  I 
do  not  r.'gret  that  course.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  an  honorable  man 
within  my  hearing!  to-night  who,  under  the  same  circumstances,  would 
not  have  done  as  I  did    [Much  applause.] 

My  own  feeling  and  conduct  is  given  as  a  specimen  of  that  of  the 
people  of  North  Carolina  at  large.  I  charge  no  bad  faith  on  Mr.  Lin- 
coln for  This  entrapment ;  doubtless  his  intentions  were  as  sincere  as 
those  of  Union  men  with  whom  he  conferred.  Events  were  happening 
so  rapidly  and  so  irresistibly  that  he  could  see  no  further  ahead  than 
others.  His  course  from  day  to  day  was  shaped  by  his  surroundings, 
— so  was  ours  ! 

The  argument  having  ceased  and  the  sword  being  drawn,  all 
classes  in  the  South  united  as  by  migic,  as  only  a  common  danger 
could  unite  them.  No  people  were  more  zealous  and  unanimous  than 
became  the  Unionists  of  my  State  in  support  of  the  war  ;  because  they 
had  been  honest  in  their  belief  that  coercion  was  wrong,  and  because 
they  felt  conscious  of  haviag  done  all  that  was  honorable  to  avert  hos- 
tilities. The  co-relative  duty  now  was  to  do  all  that  was  manly  to 
fight  it  out.  Well  and  truly  she  performed  that  duty,  as  the  result  on 
many  a  stricken  field  will  show.  First  and  last  she  sent  to  the  armies 
of  the  Confederacy,  not  relatively  but  absolutely,  more  soldiers  than 
any  other  Slate  in  the  South;  furnished  more  supplies,  equipped  her 
troops  better.  On  many  of  the  hardest  fought  fieMs  of  Northern  Vir- 
ginia she  left  more  dead  and  wounded  upon  the  blood  soaked  earth 
than  all  the  other  Southern  States  combined.  At  Appomattox  she  laid 
down  at  the  feet  of  General  Grant  double  the  number  of  muskets  of 
any  other  State  in  the  Confederacy.  She  did  the  same  at  Greens- 
boro.    There  was  not  a  sacrifice    which  she  was  called  upon  to  make 


10 

for  the  good  of  the  Southern  canse  that  she  did  not  make,  and  make 
clieeifully. 

Th  s,  from  old  fashioned,  steady,  sober,  modest  North  Carolina,  in 
a  quarrel  not  of  her  making  ;  in  a  war  not  of  her  clioosing.  I  men 
tion  these  things  not  with  the  expectation  of  exciting  your  applause  in 
behalf  of  peoi  le  whos-  opinions  are  so  widely  different  fiom  yours, 
who  fought  against  your  armies  and  soutiht  to  withdraw  from  politi- 
cal association  with  you,  but  with  the  earnest  hope  of  enlisting  your 
sympathy  foi'  that  kind  of  statesmanship  which  seeks  to  utilize  sucii 
noble  citizenship  for  the  purposes  of  the  Eepublic,  and  because  I  be- 
lieve that  a  tiue  soldi'  r  can  honor  courage  and  faithfulness  to  duty 
wherever  he  sees  it  displayed  by  any  portion  of  the  great  American 
people.  All  genius,  all  steadfastness,  all  public  and  private  virtue  is 
the  common  property  of  our  couDtrv. 

Instead  of  fostering  bitti  rness  and  devoting  politics  to  those  small 
prejudices  which  are  calculate  I  to  carry  a  ward  or  a  township  prim- 
ary, I  neg  your  recognition,  of  that  wiser  and  nobler  policy  which 
seeks  to  make  every  spark  of  genius,  every  arm  of  strenglh,  every 
heart  of  integrity,  and  every  soul  of  tire  in  America  contributory  to 
the  strengthening  and  the  np-building  of  freedom,  and  the  glory  of  the 
great  Republic.     [Great  applause.] 

But  I  did  not  come  before  you  to-night  to  discourse  upon  the  mili- 
tary aspects  and  operations  of  that  struggle  (ihouuh  it  is  a  tempting 
thenif),  but  rather  to  speak  of  its  political  and  civil  condition.  Wi  hin 
two  weeks  after  the  opening  of  hostilities  at  Sumpter,  a  convemionof 
the  people  of  North  Carolina  which,  in  the  February  preceding  had 
been  ^oted  down  by  a  large  majority,  as  looking  towards  (lis  union, 
was  called  together  in  Raleigh  to  consider  and  provide  for  the  situa- 
tion. In  it  were  the  ablest  men  in  our  State,  perhaps  the  ablest  which 
were  ever  assembled  in  our  State  in  a  body.  They  were  composed  of 
whigs,  democrats,  unionists,  and  secessionists  :  there  were  Gov. 
Morehead,  Gov.  Graham,  George  E.  Badger,  Thos  Rutfin,  John  A. 
Gilmer,  Burton  Craig,  James  W.  Osborne,  N.  W.  Wordfin,  and  others 
of  sirai'ar  high  character  and  ability.  The  la-t  semblance  of  ok!  patty 
distinctions  was  exhibited  in  that  convention  in  the  contest  as  to  the 
method  of  retiring  from  the  Union  and  joining  the  new  Confederacy. 
The  Unionists  proposed  a  resolution  of  withdrawal,  containing  a  de- 
c\&ra\ion  in  cxteii so  of  the  causes  of  separation;  the  Secessionists  op- 
posed it  by  an  ordinance  simply  repealing  the  ordinance  of  1789,  by 
which  North  Carolina  had  entered  the  Union.  The  latter  prevailed, 
and  thenceforth  all  distinctions  measurably  disappeared.  At  first 
the  popular  feeling  was  one  of  great  confidence  and  hope  The  coun 
try  was  pro>^perous  and  full  of  material  resources.  The  novelty  of 
war  with  all  its  pomp  and  circumstance  filled  the  land  with  unusual 
and  lofty  feeling.  Say  what  you  will  about  sla\  ery  it  had  filled  our 
country  with  a  class  of  young  men  admirably  fitted  for  war;  men  with 
habits  formed  to  command;  with  a  consciousness  of  superiority,  and 
with  a  sense  of  chivalry  which  taught  them  to  believe  that  personal 
courage  was  one  of  the  highest  of  human  virtues.  Your  people 
thought,  and  frequently  said,  that  they  had  become  effeminated  by 
slavery  and  luxuiious  habits,  and  could  not  endure  the  hardships  of 
war.  You  did  not  find  it  so.  On  the  other  hand  we  thought  you 
were  enfeebled  in  like  manner  by  your  in-door  lives  of  shop  and 
factory:  W'-,  too,  found  it  somewhat  different.  Indeed  both  sides  under- 
valued their  adversaries,  a  not  uncommon  fault  in  people  about  to  go 


11 

to  war.  The  buoyant  and  hopeful  feeling  which  animated  our  people 
ai  the  beginn  ng  of  the  sir  iggle  was  sustained  by  the  belief  that  on 
principle  they  werr  in  the  right;  and  es  eciall}'  that  they  were  on  the 
defensive  and  had  their  homes  and  firesides  to  defend  auainst  desola- 
tion. They  furthermore  believed — and  they  certainly  were  entitled  to 
thitt  opinion  for  they  paid  a  hiijh  price  for  it — that  a^  a  commercial 
and  manufacturing  people,  much  given  to  the  making  of  money,  ynu 
would  not  long  continue  a  contest  in  whi  ;h  there  was  apparently  no 
money  to  be  m  ide. — Alas,  we  reckoned  without  our  hos^.  in  this  re- 
spect. We  did  not  know  how  Yankee  ingenuity  was  equal  to  the  ta-k 
of  making  money  where  it  was  spent;  how  it  could  accumulate  wealth 
out  ot  the  very  pi'ocess  ot  exhaustion.  [Laughter.]  But  we  did  not 
believe,  as  has  been  often  enlarged,  that  we  could  starve  you  into 
peace,  by  withholding  our  cotton.  There  were  some  who  professed  to 
believe  this,  but  the  lunatic  asylums  of  the  State  (and  there  were  not 
many),  could  have  furnished  accommodation  for  them  all.  • 

Many  of  our  people,  too.  among  those  who  had  been  most  devoted 
Unionists, soon  came  to  look  at  ihingsin  a  philosophic  spirit, in  their  de- 
sire to  reconcile  them-elves  to  the  situation.  They  recalled  the  old  his- 
toric idea  that  liberty  was  best  preserved  in  countries  of  small  extent, 
whose  gove'-nments  came  most  immediately  under  the  nbservatiim  of 
the  governed,  and  whose  officials  were  most  directly  responsible  to 
their  constituents  ;  and  that  in  countries' of  great  lerritorial  extent, 
filled  with  vast  populations,  of  diverse  interests  and  pursuits,  there 
would  naturally  be  a  demand  for  a  strong  government,  and  a  govern- 
ment was  made  strong  necessarily  by  conferring  up^n  it  powers 
wrested  from  the  people, — a  process  most  undoubtedly  dangerous  to 
liberty.  They  considered  also  that  the  centralizing  tendencies  of  the 
times,  which  they  had  always  been  taught  to  dread,  might  best  be 
checked  by  a  division  of  this  great  la  d  into  two  or  more  nationalities, 
wher  in  individual  rights  might  still  be  made  to  constitute  'be  primal 
objects  of  the  smaller  governments,  rather  than  the  national  glory 
which  threatened  to  agt^randize  the  movement  of  the  one  great 
united  government.  Whatever  mav  be  your  opinion  of  ihese  views, 
I  only  wish  here  to  as-ure  you  that  they  were  widely  entertained,  and 
that  they  served  to  reconcile  many  to  the  proposed  separation. 

With  such  feelings  and  hopes  the  war  was  begun  I  Volunteers  were 
first  called  upon  for  six  months,  then  for  twelve  months  ;  then  for 
"three  years  or  the  war" — no  man  supposing  that  it  could  exceed 
three  years   in  duration 

Promises  were  freely  made  that  six  months  must  wind  it  up.  Look- 
ing back  at  it  all  now,  it  is  easy  for  us  to  assume  a  superior  wisdom, 
and  laugh  at  all  this  folly.  The  first  Congress  of  the  Confederacy, 
sitting  in  Montgomery,  Alabama,  provided  for  the  raising  of  fifteen 
millions  of  dollars  for  the  support  of  the  war.  They  did  not  want 
the  President  embarrassed  for  want  of  money.  For  this  they  were 
seriously  rebuked  in  many  quarters  for  pernicious  extravagance  ;  and 
it  was  alleged  that  we  were  beginning  alieady  to  fall  into  the  habit  of 
the  U.  S.  Government,  in  thus  accumulating  useless  money  in  the 
treasury  to  become  a  source  of  corruption.  It  seems  to  me  however 
that  some  of  this  kind  of  lunacy  was  also  displayed  on  this  side  of 
the  line.  I  think  I  remember  fome  promises  of  Mr.  Seward  of  sup- 
pressing the  rebellion  on  ninety-days- after  sight,  exclusive  of  the  usual 
days  of  grace  allowed  on  commercial  paper.  [Laughter  J  But  what- 
ever the  mistakes  our  leaders  made  in  calling  for  troops,  the  troops 
came  ;  came  so  promptly  and  in  such  numbers  that  neither  their  own 


12 

States  nor  the  Confederate  Government  could  receive  and  properly 
provide  for  thrm.  Numbers  were  refused,  and  it  was  often  consid- 
ered a  special  favor  for  a  regiment  or  a  battalion  to  be  accepted  and 
sent  to  the  front. 

At  this  time  and  for  twelve  or  fifteen  months  afterwards  the  civil 
authoriti  s  of  the  new  Confederate  Government  were  very  pojiular 
and  were  most  cordially  supported  by  all  classes.  In  the  winter  of 
1861-2  a  change  began  to  take  place.  The  time  of  the  six  months' 
volunteers  had  expired,  and  that  of  the  twelve  months'  men  was  ap- 
proaching expiration,  and  it  was  seen  that  if  they  were  all  ai  once 
mustered  out  the  Confederacy  would  be  left  without  a  sutficient 
army,  at  the  very  opening  of  a  campaign.  Eff.  rts  were  at  first  made 
to  induce  the  troops  in  the  field  to  re-enlist,  hut  for  various  causes 
these  efforts  were  only  partially  successful.  By  this  time  much  of 
the  novelty  of  the  thing  had  worn  off;  the  volunteers  had  seen  service 
enough  to  gratify  their  cariosity,  and  the  people  had  experienced 
what  it  was  to  be  in  a  state  of  actual  war.  Both  soldiers  and  people 
had  also  tasted  somewhat  of  its  unpleasint  elements.  The  enthusiasm 
which  had  b<^en  excited  by  the  victories  of  Big  Bethel,  Manassas  and 
other  engagements  of  the  first  years'  campaign,  had  st^nsibly  dimin- 
ished And  on  the  whole,  people  were  no  longer  disposed  to  go  far 
out  of  the  way  for  the  sake  of  being  shot  at.  Seeing,  tberefure.  whilst 
yet  these  efforts  at  re- enlistments  were  going  on,  that  the  result  was 
at  leas^  doubtful,  the  Confederate  Congress  suddenly  ended  ttie  mat- 
ter by  the  enactment  of  a  sweeping  cunscript  law,  pi  icing  every  able- 
bodied  man.  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  thirty  five,  with  certain 
exceptions,  in  the  service.  Here  the  first  open  and  undisguised  com- 
plaints were  heard,  and  the  murmurings  grew  louder  when  the 
nature  of  the  exceptions  wasascertciineii.  One  of  the  exceptions  from 
the  operations  of  the  law  was  in  favor  of  the  owner  or  manager  of 
twenty  negroes.  Altogether  it  produced  a  decided  effect  on  public 
sentiment. 

It  was  perhaps  the  severfst  blow  the  Confederacy  ever  received,  as 
it  did  more  than  anything  else  to  alienate  the  affections  of  the  common 
people,  w  ithout  whose  support  it  could  not  live  for  a  day.  It  was  not 
only  legarded  as  a  confession  that  the  ne"w  Government  was  not  able 
to  depend  upon  the  voluntary  support  of  the  people,  with  which  it  so 
triumphantly  started  out — which,  of  course,  happened  also  to  you, 
and  must  happen  to  any  Government  in  a  long  continued  struggle — 
but  it  opened  a  wide  door  to  deraagojues  to  appeal  xo  the  non-slave- 
holding  class,  and  make  them  believe  thut  the  only  issue  was  the  pro- 
te'  tion  of  slavery,  in  which  they  were  to  be  sacrificed  for  the  sole 
benefit  of  the  masters.  The  cry  was  rung  through  the  country  that 
it  was  a  "rich  man's  war  and  a  poor  man's  fight."  This  was  un- 
doubtedly the  weakest  point  in  our  position,  and  you  can  well  imagine 
the  s  ate  of  political  feeling  such  an  appeal  was  calculated  to  bring 
about,  and  the  great  dilflculty  the  supporters  of  the  war  had  in  meet- 
ing it.  That  this  1  w  was  a  great  calamity  to  the  Southern  cause  I 
regard  as  indisputable,  but  that  it  was  a  mistake  I  a'-n  not  prepared 
to  assert  when  I  consider  the  counter  calamity  which  it  was  intended 
to  avert.  The  wise  man  of  scripture  hfissaid  that  the  "destruction  of 
the  poor  is  their  poverty. "  We  were  so  hard  pressed  that  neces-ity 
selected  our  means  for  us.  Undoubtedly  but  for  it  the  Southern  ar- 
mies would  have  been  virtually  disbanded  at  the  very  opening  of 
the  great  campaign  of  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-two,  and  McClel- 
lan  would  have  marched  triumphantly  into  Richmond.     The  troops 


13 

which  had  enlisted  for  the  war,  added  to  those  which  had  re-enlisted 
and  those  whose  time  had  not  yet  expired,  could  not  bave  stopped  him. 
This  would  probably  have  been  decisive  of  the  war,  for  in  this  a^e  of 
railroads  and  telegraph  lines  such  a  contest  could  not  have  been  main- 
tained by  the  spasmodic  efforts  of  a  volunteer  force,  as  was  our  War 
of  Independence  one  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  necessary  also,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  exemption  of  the  managers  of  negroes  from  conscription  to 
give  a  word  of  explanation  concerning  that  enactment.  It  may  not 
have  occurred  to  the  people  of  the  North  that  our  slaves  were  not  an 
element  of  weakness  to  us,  a?  it  was  asserted  confidently  that  they 
would  be,  On  the  contrary,  they  proved  a  source  of  positive  strength, 
in  that  by  tilling  the  soil,  conducting  our  domestic  industries,  and  pro- 
ducing our  supplies,  they  enabled  the  entire  capable  white  population 
to  take  up  arms.  By  this  means  we  far  exceeded  the  ratio  which  in 
all  wars  should  exist  between  those  who  fight  in  the  field  and  those 
who  labor  at  home.  For  example,  one  soul  out  of  every  six  in  North 
Carolina  served  in  the  army.  The  exemption  of  managers  and  owners 
of  negroes  from  conscription  may  therefore  be  called  an  unwise  at- 
tempt to  do  a  most  wise  thing,  to  wit,  to  utilize  to  the  utmost  the 
capacity  of  a  black  population  of  four  millions  to  contribute  to  the 
support  of  the  war.  Whether  this  could  have  been  done  in  some  less 
objectionable  but  equally  effective  way  it  would  be  an  assumption  of 
wisdom  after  the  fact  for  me  now  to  gay. 

Here  permit  me  to  call  your  attention  to  the  conduct  of  the  south- 
ern slaves  during  that  war.  You  had  been  taught,  by  press,  pulpit  and 
hustings,  to  believe  that  they  were  ^n  oppressed,  abused  and  diaboli- 
cally treated  race;  that  their  groanings  daily  and  hourly  appealed  to 
heaven,  whilst  their  shackles  and  their  scars  testified  in  the  face  of  all 
humanity  against  their  treatment.  No  doubt  many  of  you  believed 
:he  harrowing  story,  for  there  was  much  like  it,  only  worse,  in  your 
own  early  history. 

How  was  this  grave  impeachment  of  a  whole  people  sustained,  when 
you  went  among  them  to  emancipate  them  from  the  horrors  of  their 
serfdom  ?  When  the  war  began,  naturally  you  expected  insurrections, 
incendiary  burnings,  murder  and  outrage,  with  all  the  terrible  condi- 
tions of  servile  war.  There  were  not  wanting  fanatic  il  wretches  who 
did  their  utmost  to  excite  it.  Did  you  find  it  so?  Here  is  what  you 
found.  Within  hearing  of  the  guns  that  were  roaring  to  set  them  free, 
with  the  land  stripped  of  its  male  population,  and  none  around  them 
except  the  aged,  the  women  and  the  children,  they  not  only  failed  to 
enibrace  their  opportunity  of  vengeance,  but  for  the  most  part  they 
failed  to  avail  themselves  of  the  chance  of  freedom  itself.  They  re- 
mained quietly  on  our  plantations,  cultivated  our  fields  and  cared  for 
our  mothers,  wives  and  little  ones  with  a  faithful  love  and  a  loyal 
kindness  which,  in  the  nature  of  things,  could  only  be  born  of  sincere 
good  will.  Very  few,  indeed,  compaiatively,  followed  your  armies  as 
they  swept  by  the  old  homesteads,  and  a  ^till  smaller  number  tied  from 
their  homes  to  get  under  its  protection.  No  murder,  no  outrage,  no 
burnings  characterized  their  course.  Not  a  hand  was  raised  in  ven- 
geance by  the  southern  slave  when  the  supreme  opportunity  came  to 
him.  Even  those  who  left  the  plantations  did  so  mostly  by  stealth,  as 
though  ashamed  of  deserting  their  master's  families  even  for  the  com- 
mendable purpose  of  joining  themselves  to  freedom.  This  was  the 
general  rule.  From  the  day  of  their  emancipation  to  the  present 
moment,  except  where  instigated  by  the  evil  counsels  of  bad  white- 
men,  their  demeanor  towards  their  late  masters  has  been  characterized 


14 

-mostly  by  kindness  and  considerate  respect.  I  know  of  no  instance  in 
the  world's  history  when  a  people  similarly  situated  have  behaved 
better  on  the  whole.  These  facts  are  significant.  That  they  are  com- 
plimentary  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  black  race  no  one  doubts  ;  do 
they  not  also  say  enough  for  the  southern  whites,  in  regard  to  their 
rule  as  masters,  to  justify  you  in  thinking  better  of  them  than  per- 
haps you  have  been  accustomed  to  do  ?  According  to  well  known 
moral  laws  this  kindly  loyalty  of  the  one  race  could  not  have  been  be- 
gotten by  the  cruelty  and  oppression  of  the  other.  [Applause.]  It  will 
do  you  no  harm  to  reflect  upon  this. 

Whilst  the  Confederate  armies  were  holding  their  own  in  the  field 
and  the  civil  authorities  were  administering  its  affairs  in  the  ordinary 
grooves,  there  was  but  little  excitement  or  political  feeling  in  the  public 
mind.  It  had  been  supposed  that  the  war  could  be  fought  through 
without' any  disturbances  of  the  ordinary  functions  of  civil  government, 
or  any  strain  upon  the  muniments  of  their  civil  rights.  But  so  soon 
as  the  fortunes  of  the  Confederacy  began  to  ebb  ;  so  soon  as  the  supe- 
rior numbers  and  resources  of  the  North  began  to  be  seriously  felt, 
the  managers  of  the  South  came  to  feel  the  necessity  of  resorting  to 
extraordinary  means,  and  this  feeling  of  serenity  was  rudely  disturbed. 
Political  discontent  and  distrust  began  to  prevail.  Perhaps  in  this 
respect  was  made  the  initial  mistake  of  the  whole  secession  move- 
ment: a  mistake,  the  fatality  of  which  increased  day  by  day  to  the  end. 
We  started  out  without  revolution  of  any  kind,  with  all  the  machinery 
of  society,  State  and  Federal,  in  complete  operation.  There  was  simply 
a  transfer  of  the  central  authority  from  the  United  States  to  the  Con- 
federate States  of  America.  The  same  bond  of  Union  or  Constitution 
was  adopted,  save  a  change  of  a  few  strokes  ot  the  pen.  In  thus 
avoiding  the  alarms  of  revolution  and  giving  assurance  to  the  timid 
of  the  security  of  society  at  the  outset,  a  great  point  was  undoubtedly 
gained.  But  this  was  dearly  paid  for.  These  smoothly  flowing  con- 
ditions could  not  of  course  be  maintained  No  consideration  was 
given  to  the  dangers  of  that  coming  period  when  hard  necessity 
should  compel  the  setting  aside  of  civil  rights  and  peaceful  forms,  and 
the  substitution  of  the  harsh  features  of  revolution — at  a  moment, 
too,  when  the  government  most  needed  the  warm  support  of  public 
opinion.  Looked  at  simply  with  a  view  to  success,  in  my  opinion  the 
seceding  States  should  have  faced  the  most  ultra  measures  of  revolu- 
tion at  the  very  start ;  they  should  have  formed  no  National  govern- 
ment and  should  have  bound  themselves  by  the  shackles  of  no  Con- 
stitution To  face  the  great  and  terrible  odds  against  them  in  their 
struggle  with  a  people  three  times  their  numbers  and  ten  times  their 
wealth,  with  the  world  for  a  recruiting  ground  of  armies  and  of 
means,  they  should'^have  stripped  themselves  naked  of  every  vestige  of 
law,  constitution  or  restraint  which  in  any  way  hindered  or  encumbered 
the  arm  of  war,  and  should  have  submitted  every  energy,  every 
element  of  strength  to  the  sole  direction  of  a  single  will.  This  would 
indeed  have  been  a  terrible  thing  to  do,  but  no  less  fearful  was  the 
alternative, and  we  should  not  have  gone  into  the  thing  at  all  if  not  wil- 
ling to  embrace  every  possble  means  of  success.  Men  would  have  no 
doubt  made  up  their  minds  to  it,  if  instead  of  glossing  over  the  difticul- 
ties  and  deceiving  with  fallacious  hopes  of  a  short  war  and  easy  success, 
■the  real  facts  had  been  boldly  and  honestly  presented -at  the  initial 
jfnoment.     I  tested  this  better  principle  of  our  nature  in  the  re  enlist- 


15 

ing  of  my  own  regiment  when  its  term  was  about  to  expire  in  1862. 
I  did  this  most  successfully  by  telling  them  the  simple  truth,  that  there 
was  a  long  and  terrible  war  before  them  ;  hardship  and  suffering  and 
death  for  the  most  of  them  ;  that  no  man  could  foresee  the  end — but 
that  their  country  needed  them  and  its  cause  would  be  lost  without 
them.  That  was  all,  audit  was  sufficient.  That  regiment,  the  26th 
North  Carolina,  led  by  the  gallant  Colonel  Harry  Burgwyn,  the  son 
of  a  noble  Boston  woman,  left  six  hundred  dead  and  wounded  on  the 
heights  of  Gettsyburg,  with  their  heroic  young  commander  among 
them.  A  number  of  these  were  found  within  that  deadly  stone  wall 
which  Lee's  whole  army  had  so  vainly  attempted  to  scale.   [Applause]. 

But  this  course  was  not  adopted,  and  the  usual  disappointment  fol- 
lowed. When  conscription  came,  as  I  have  said,  complaints  began  ; 
when  conscription  was  extended  complaints  grew  louder  ;  when  com- 
plaints became  angry,  the  suspension  of  habeas  corpus  was  authorized 
and  martial  law— that  is  to  say,  no  law — was  allowed  to  be  pro- 
claimed, if  need  be.  This,  of  course,  increased  and  deepened  the  dis- 
content, and  from  that  time  forward  there  was  in  several  of  the 
States,  notably  North  Carolina  and  Georgia,  an  irritating  sense  of 
wrong,  caused  by  the  attempt  of  the  Confederate  Executive  to  enforce 
the  laws  of  Congress,  and  the  efforts  of  ihe  State  to  protect  the  per- 
sonal rights  of  their  citizens.  Simple  justice  requires  me  to  say  that 
there  was  no  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  President  of  the  Confed- 
eracy to  violate  these  rights  per  se.  Indeed  the  disposition  was  quite 
the  contrary.  He  never  abused  the  extraordinary  powers  given  him 
by  Congress  ;  in  fact,  scarcely  resorted  to  them  at  all. 

So  great  was  his  reverence,  and  that  of  the  Southern  mind  at  large, 
for  all  the  old-time  muniments  of  personal  liberty,  that  nearly  every 
claim  of  the  States  in  behalf  of  their  citizens  was  conceded — oftentimes 
at  what  appeared  to  be  a  sacritice  of  the  public  interest.  I  believe 
when  you  view  these  things  dispassionately  and  calmly  you  will  feel 
bound  to  give  proper  credit  to  both  Confederate  and  State  authorities 
for  their  eft'orts  during  all  the  confusion  of  those  unhappy  times  to 
preserve  both  the  essence  and  the  forms  of  personal  liberty  under  the 
strongest  temptations  to  disregard  them.  I  feel  that  it  would  not  be 
too  much  in  me  to  say  here  that  we  far  exceeded  your  States,  and  cer- 
tainly your  Federal  Government,  in  this  important  respect,  though 
the  strain  upon  you  was  not  nearly  so  hard  as  upon  us.  From  Sep- 
tember. 1862,  to  May,  1865,  I  was  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  State  of 
North  Carolina;  and  when  eleven  years  afterwards  I  was  again  inaugu- 
rated Governor  for  the  third  time,  the  proudest  boast  which  I  could 
make  in  regard  to  my  previous  service  was  that  during  my  adminis- 
tration the  old  legal  maxim  inter  arma  silent  legtS  was  expunged,  and 
in  its  place  was  written  inter  armfo  leges  audithantur.  The  laws  icere 
heard  amidst  all  the  roar  of  cannon.  No  man  within  the  jurisdiction 
•of  the  State  of  North  Carolina  was  denied  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of 
Jiabeus  corpus,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  or  the  equal  protection  of  the 
laws,  as  provided  by  our  Constitution  and  the  Bill  of  Rights. 

It  would,  perhaps,  be  not  uninteresting  to  you  to  know  something  of 
the  curious  experience  through  which  the  Southern  people  passed 
during  that  period  in  the  matter  of  physical  resources.  You  can 
scarcely  imagine  the  feeling  which  comes  to  a  people  when  isolated  as 
we  were,  and  shut  out  fro7n  communication  with  all  the  world.  A 
nation  in  prison  we  were,  in  the  midst  of  civilized  society,  and 
forced  to  rely  exclusively  upon  ourselves  for  everything.     "When  the 


16 

war  began,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  cotton  and  woolen  mills  and 
the  crude  establishments  common  to  all  plantations  and  villages,  we 
were  utterly  without  manufactures  of  any  kind.  !So  far  as  I  can  re- 
call theie  was  not  a  foundry  for  casting  a  cannon,  a  shop  for  mak- 
ing a  musket,  nor  a  mill  for  making  a  pound  of  powder,  within  the 
limits  of  the  eleven  seceding  States.  Not  a  grain  scythe,  nor  an  axe, 
nor  a  bar  of  railroad  iron  was  made  in  the  country,  except  the  few, 
possibly,  occasionally  produced  in  the  smallest  quantities  and  in  the 
crudest  style  of  temporary  makeshift,  In  short,  nearly  ail  the  staple 
articles  of  human  necessity,  for  both  peace  and  war,  we  were  without 
the  machinery  and  the  establishments  for  making.  But  the  land  was 
full  of  resources,  and  the  raw  material  for  the  manufacture  of  all  that 
we  needed.  And  strange  as  it  may  appear  to  you,  it  was  full  of  me- 
chanical capacity  to  deal  with  this  material.  If  you  could  have  wit- 
nessed the  zeal  and  ihe  success  with  which  our  native  genius  took 
hold  of  it,  under  the  extraordinary  stimulus  of  the  times,  you  would 
no  longer  believe  that  New  England  Yankees  possess  a  monopoly  of 
the  American  inventive  faculty.  [Laughter]  Cotton  and  woolen 
mills  quickly  sprang  up  and  the  c ipacity  of  existing  ones  was  enlarged. 
Foundrys  for  casting  cannon,  shops  for  making  fire  arms,  swords 
and  bayonets,  and  mills  for  making  powder  were  set  up  in  abundance. 
Shoes  and  blankets  were  made  by  the  hundred  thousand,  and  trans- 
portation wagons  and  camp  equipage-  of  h11  kinds  soon  supplied  the 
demand.  A  rigid  blockade  of  our  coast  at  a  very  tarly  date  shur  off 
our  hopes  of  supplies  from  abroad;  and  yet  that  blockade  was  not  so 
successfully  maintained  but  that  needed  articles  crept  in  in  considera- 
ble quantities,  though  fitfully.  A  long-legged  steamer  which  I  pur- 
chased in  the  Clyde  for  the  State  of" North  Carolina,  made  eleven 
round  trips  from  IBermudas  into  the  port  of  Wilmington,  carrying  out 
cotton  and  bringing  back  supplies  of  those  things  which  could  not  be 
procured  al  home,  especiallj^  grain  scythes,  card  clothing  for  the 
factories,  hand  cards  for  our  old-fashioned  looms,  and  medicines,  with 
large  quantities  of  shoes,  blankets  and  army  cloths.  She  often  entered 
the  port  in  broad  daylight,  in  the  face  of  the  blockading  fleet.  The 
situation  called  into  active  use  all  the  mechanical  talent  of  our  people. 
The  village  or  cross-road  blacksmith  refurnished  his  shop  and  made 
tools  and  agricultural  implements  for  his  neighbors;  the  shoemaker, 
the  cooper,  the  wheelwright,  iind  the  tanner,  all  sprang  into  sudden 
importance.  Even  the  druggist  compounded  from  the  wondrous 
flora  of  the  country  substitutes  for  nearly  all  the  drugs  of  commerce, 
which  if  not  so  efficacious  were  at  least  more  harmless  than  the 
genuine  article.  The  devices  and  expedients  adopted  in  all  the  in- 
dustries, the  social  and  domestic  departments  of  our  daily  life,  were 
most  ingenious,  though  sometimes  ludicrous.  Here  the  subtle  con- 
trivings  of  the  female  sex  became  most  conspicuous.  The  silks,  me- 
rinos, alpaca^  and  other  dress  goods  of  our  woman-folks,  known  as 
"  store  clothes,"  which  were  on  hand  when  the  blockade  began,  were 
saved  and  carefully  used  for  weddings  and  other  occasions  of  high 
state.  For  calico  prints  were  substituted  tlie  colored  plaids  manufac- 
tured in  our  cotton  mills  or  woven  in  the  hand- looms  of  the  old  plan- 
tation. 

Perhaps  you  have  given  some  consideration  to  the  importance  which 
a  worn  m  attaches  tothe  bonnet ;  and  unless  your  domestic  educatioti 
has  been  neglected  you  are  doubtless  aware  how  essential  in  all  civil- 
ized lands  tiie  satisfactory  adjustment  of  the  bonnet  question  is  to  the 
peace  of  mankind.     This  was  now  upon  us  with  all  its  force  !     There 


17 

■we  were,  with  a  bonnet-wearing  population  of  at  least  three  millions 
in  our  midst,  and  not  a  bonnet  factory  within  the  Confederate  States, 
and  with  a  frowning  cordon  of  ships  of  war  guarding  every  port  to 
keep  out  this  essential  army  supply  as  contraband  of  war  !  Tlie  situa- 
tion was  indeed  most  appalling  ;  but  my  fair  country-women  were 
•equal  to  it,  as  they  have  been  to  all  other  emergencies  which  they 
have  been  called  on  to  face.  As  in  the  Wars  ot  the  Roses,  the  women 
were  greater  partizans  than  the  men,  and  with  them  the  memories  of 
the  struggle  were  longer  in  dying  out,  so  it  proved  with  us. 

They  submitted  to  the  privations  and  hardships  of  the  situation 
with  a  cheerful  patience  which  shamed  the  boasted  courage  of  man. 
In  these  inconsiderable  matters  they  showed  that  beneath  the  thin 
veneer  of  personal  vanity  there  lay  the  great  and  noble  qualities  of 
common  sense  and  patriotism.  They  took  the  bright  straw  of  the 
wheat,  oats,  and  rye,  and  the  husk  of  the  corn  ears,  rich  in  the 
beauteous  coloring  of  silver  and  old  gold,  and  with  deft  fingers  wove 
for  themselves  all .  manner  of  headgear,  as  charming  as  any  which 
ever  came  from  the  shops  of  France  or  Italy  the  natural  earthly 
homes  of  artistic  beauty  !  As  to  the  effects  produced,  I  beg  to 
assure  the  inexperienced  in  ray  audience  that  in  gazing  upon 
Southern  girls  thus  arrayed  from  top  to  toe  in  home  made  striped 
cottons,  which  we  called  Alamanee  plaids,  set  off  by  corn-shuck 
bonnets,  the  work  of  their  own  hands,  I  have  felt  all  the  usual 
symptoms  of  a  violent  attack — increased  action  of  the  heart,  short- 
ness of  breath,  and  that  general  feeling  of  "  all-overishness,"  as  strong 
and  irresistible  as  could  have  been  superinduced  by  any  other  possible 
female  get-up.  I  became  sadly  aware  of  the  fact  that  it  did  not  matter 
how  they  dressed,  they  had  the  same  power  to  find  the  soft  spot  in  our 
hearts  every  time.  It  is  male  destiny.  In  the  language  of  St.  Paul, 
"  Brethren,  I  speak  as  a  man," — "I  lie  not."     [Great  laughter.] 

Nor  were  their  efforts  confined  to  the  habilitating  of  their  own  sex. 
They  made  hats  of  the  same  material,  and  nearly  all  the  clothing 
worn  by  men  and  boys  was  woven  and  made  up  by  them,  of  wool  or 
cotton  or  a  mixture  of  the  two  materials,  by  the  aid  of  the  old  hand- 
looms. 

In  the  way  of  eating  and  driaking  we  did  better,  especially  with  re- 
gard to  the  leading  articles  of  diet.  Our  farm  productions,  always 
abundant  and  good,  were  made  still  more  so  by  the  fact  that  there 
was  no  sale  for  our  great  staples,  cotton  and  tobacco,  and  our  fields 
were  therefore  devoted  to  edible  products.  Of  alcoholic  liquors  we 
had  too  much.  Corn  whiskey  and  apple  brandy  were  both  abundant 
and  cheap.  If  any  of  my  auditors  happened  to  be  in  Eastern  North 
Carolina  during  that  time  he  will  doubtless  have  heartburning  recol- 
lections of  the  apple  brandy  he  found  there,  under  the  somewhat 
mysterious  denomination  of  "  New  Dip."  Bat  I  shall  do— what  he 
perhaps  did  not — forbear.     [Laughter.] 

When  toward  the  close  of  the  war,  by  reason  of  the  circumscribing  of 
the  scope  of  country  from  which  the  army  obtained  its  supplies,  it 
became  necessary  for  the  States  to  forbid  the  use  of  grain  tor  distilla- 
tion, various  other  substances  were  adopted.  A  drink  was  made  from 
potatoes,  from  rice,  from  pumpkins  and  turnips,  and  from  the  domestic 
sugar  cane,  called  sorghum.  A  brandy  was  also  made  from  persim- 
mons. As  to  sorghum  whiskey  I  can  only  say  that  in  its  flavor  and 
its  effects  it  was  decidedlymoreterrible  than  "an  army  with  banners." 
On  the  shortest  notice  it  could  furnish  its  victims  with  the  panoramic 
view  of   a  full  managerie.     [Laughter.]     If  at  any  time  during  your 


18 

visit  to  the  South  a  well  directed  stream  from  a  few  barrels  of  it 
could  have  been  fired  into  your  ranks,  you  could  never  have  lived 
to  honor  me  by  your  attention  to  night.  As  to  the  brandy  made  from 
the  native  persimmon,  it  had  some  good  trait-,  one  of  which  was  that 
it  partook  of  the  highly  astringent  qualities  of  the  fruit.  I  specially 
commend  it  to  oratory.  During  the  campaign  I  made  for  governor 
in  1864,  a  speech  which  I  made  under  the  refreshment  of  this 
iluid  was  "pronounced  one  of  the  best  of  my  life,"  my  admiring 
friends  declaring  it  to  be  such,  because  the  astringent  drink  had 
tended  to  shut  me  up — and  I  had  said  less  than  usual  !  Congress  could 
not  do  wiser  than  to  purchase  a  quantity  of  that  beverage  for  its  own 
use.  [Applause  and  laughter.]  In  the  matter  of  tea,  coffee,  and 
sugar  we  were  very  badly  off.  No  one  can  imagine,  until  he  has  seen 
it  tried,  how  dependent  people  become  upon  these  gentle  beverages, 
especially  the  aged  and  infirm.  Whilst  there  ai'e  several  tolerable 
substitutes  for  tea,  there  is  nothing  in  nature  that  can  at  all  supply 
the  place  of  the  gracious  Arabian  berry.  It  stands  alone  in  the  catalogue 
of  generous,  refreshing  non-intoxicating  stimulants,  and  more  so 
perhaps  to  the  people  of  the  South  than  to  any  other  in  Christendom. 
Whilst  our  small  stock  on  hand  lasted,  divers  and  sundry  expedients 
were  adopted  to  prolong  its  existence,  by  mixtures  with  various 
substances,  parched  rye,  corn-meal,  chestnuts,  ochra  and  sweet 
potatoes  were  mingled  with  small  quantities  of  coffee  in  the 
roasting,  in  the  hope  that  the  royal  berry  would  assert  its  superiority 
by  imparting  at  least  a  portion  of  its  flavor  to  the  ignoble  compound. 
But  this  proved  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  The  linked  sweetness  refused 
to  be  long  drawn  out.  Nature  abhored  the  bibulous  miscegenation, 
and  the  throes  of  deathly  thirst  alone  rendered  it  sufferable.  A  wag 
once  recommended  that  it  be  roasted  with  pop- corn,  for  the  reason 
that,  in  the  process  of  roasting,  the  pop- corn  would  all  jump  out  of 
the  pan  leaving  the  original  coffee  as  good  as  ever.  [Laughter.]  But 
when  the  last  grain  of  coffee  had  been  used,  and  the  last  pound  of 
sugar  which  could  be  obtained  from  captured  Louisiana  had  gone 
with  it,  then,  and  not  till  then,  did  we  realize  that  the  crisis  of  our  fate 
had  come,  and  blank  despair  had  settled  down  upon  the  southern 
cause.  Without  the  flavor  or  the  shadow  of  a  pretense  of  the  flavor  of 
coffee,  we  were  reduced  to  the  honest  truth  in  the  shape  of  a  drink 
made  of  parched  rye  sweetened  with  sorghum  molasses!  With  a  cheer- 
ful melancholy  this  was  spoken  of  as  coffee,  in  deference  to  the  cus- 
toms of  antiquity.  [Merriment].  It  might  with  propriety  be  described 
as  the  fluid  form  of  secession — and  as  the  last  and  a  most  faithful  sup- 
port of  the  Confederacy.  I  wonder  did  anyone  who  hears  me  to  night 
ever  taste  it  ?  I  am  flrmly  persuaded  that  if  all  who  are  present  had 
lived  upon  it  for  one  week,  as  we  did  tor  three  years,  they  would  rise 
as  one  man  from  their  seats  and  extending  both  hands  towards  me, 
would  exclaim:  "We  forgive  the  war,  O,  Rebel;  we  pardon  secession; 
friends  and  brothers  you  have  suffered  enough!"  [Tumultuous laugh- 
ter.] To  say,  as  was  the  custom,  that  the  hopes  of  the  Confederacy 
depended  upon  the  brave  hearts  of  its  defenders  was  in  effect  to  take 
an  unpardonable  liberty  with  science;  these  hopes  rested  chiefly  on 
the  strong  stomachs  of  their  defenders  !  Patriotism  had  become  a 
question  of   dyspepsia  and  nightmare! 

But  ^  truce  to  this  jesting  with  the  sadness  of  our  situation. 

ih'.v  pli/sical  privations  and  discomforts  did  not  produce  any  se- 
rious dissat4sf action  with  our  cause.  They  were  borne  by  all  classes 
with  a  patient  composure.     No  one  was  disposed  to  blame  the  Gov- 


19 

ernment  for  them.  It  was  the  utter  hopelessness  of  the  struggle 
which  forced  itself  upon  the  popular  mind  in  the  beginning  of  1864 
that  increased  the  discontent  and  made  our  people  look  eagerly  around 
for  the  ways  which  led  to  peace.  It  was  seen  that  after  evei'y  great 
battle,  no  odds  what  the  result,  the  losses  to  the  Union  arms  were  im- 
mediately supplied,  whilst  the  gaps  which  were  left  in  our  ranks  were 
filled  no  more.  In  JSTorth'.Carolina  a  large  party,  composed  of  citizens, 
whose  opinions  were  not  to  be  despised,  favored  the  making  of  some 
effort  in  the  direction  of  peace.  I  may  say  this  desire  was  almost 
universal,  but  the  difficulty  was  in  finding  that  way  in  accordance 
with  the  Constitution  and  laws  wherewith  we  had  bound  ourselves, 
and  the  faith  which  we  had  plighted  to  our  Confederates.  By  ac- 
ceeding  to  the  Confederacy  and  joining  our  fortunes  to  those  of  the-, 
members  thereof,  an  obvious  principle  of  honor  and  good  faith  re- 
strained any  State  from  the  attempt  to  make  separate  terms  for  itself. 
According  to  the  Constitution  which  we  had  assumed  to  support,  the 
Confederate  Executive  and"  Senate  were  the  lawful  agents  for  the 
making  of  treaties.  When  requested  to  attempt  negotiations  for  the 
common  benefit  their  reply  was  that  they  had  again  and  again  done 
so,  with  the  invariable  answer  that  no  terms  could  be  obtained  except 
such  as  amounted  to  unconditional  surrender.  There  is  no  qiiestion 
but  that  circumstances  rendered  it  impossible  for  the  Confederate  of- 
ficials to  have  done  more  than  they  did  without  a  manifest  violation 
of  the  trust  reposed  in  them.  They  could  not  commit  suicide.  So  with 
a  full  conviction  that  we  were  in  the  rapids  and  drifting  swiftly  on  to 
the  final  and  inevitable  catastrophe,  all  parties — State  and  Federal — 
were  so  bound  by  the  trammels  of  the  Constitution  we  had  so  un- 
wisely taken  upon  ourselves  to  support,  that  nobody  could  interfere 
without  apparent  dishonor.  We  could  only  stand  still,  watching  our 
brave  but  ragged  and  ill-fed  battalions  as  they  wasted  away  in  the  vain 
effort  to  work  a  miracle  which  was  beyond  the  reach  of  human  cour- 
age, whilst  despair  lowered  sullenly  upon  the  hearts  of  a  noble  people, 
who  preferred  the  worst  which  fate  might  have  in  store  for  them  rather 
than  incur  the  suspicion  of  dishonor.  We  could  now  see  something 
of  that  fate.  There  awaited  us  not  only  the  usual  penalties  of  subju- 
gation— bitter  enough  even  when  inflicted  by  an  organized  force  re- 
strained by  discipline — but  all  the  license  of  demoralized  armies  and 
society  in  a  state  of  defeat.  The  land  was  already  darkened  by  the 
shadow  of  those  evils  which  are  born  of  lawlessness  and  terror. 
Thieves,  murderers,  and  beasts  of  prey  dominated  the  land  and  out- 
raged the  helpless.    The  deserting  soldier  turned  desperado  and  villain. 

"Rough  and  hard  of  heart, 

With  full  lllievty  of  the  toloody  hand, 

Did  range  with  conscience  wide  as  hell." 

It  looked,  indeed,  so  like  chaos  come  to  reign  again  that  the  Army 
of  the  United  States  appeared  to  us  as  a  deliverer  when  the  end  came, 
because  its  battalions  at  least  seemed  to  obey  somebody  and  to  be 
governed  by  some  law;  and  when  you  think  of  the  devastating 
"bummers"  who  followed  in  its  wake,  or  preceded  its  march,  you 
■^ill  understand  the  utter  desperation  of  things  with  us.  jMa}  God 
preserve  any  portion  of  the  American  people  from  the  experience  of 
a  country  drenched  in  the  blood  of  its  sons,  desolated  by  the  1ramp 
of  armies,  exhausted  of  its  substance,  bereft  of  its  laws  and  jeace- 
keepers,  and  utterly  abandoned  to  the  reign  of  unrestrained  and  un- 
principled violence.     I  am  powerless  to  describe  it  or  make  you  even 


20 

faintly  sensible  of  its  horrors.  Our  own  true  and  faithful  soldiers 
had  not  yet  returned  from  the  field,  and  it  was  not  until  they  arrived 
at  home  that  these  disorders  were  suppressed  and  our  condition  be- 
came tolerable. 

But  these  things  did  end  at  last,  as  all  things  must.  The  last  Confede- 
rate soldier  laid  down  his  arms,  the  flag  of  the  Union  was  triumphant 
everywhere,  and  the  bloody  drama  of  secessinn  became  as  a  dream. 

Slowly  violence  and  disorder  passed  away  and  the  conservative  forces 
of  society  began  to  assert  their  power  in  the  restoration  of  law.  Their 
actio  I  was  quickened  by  the  necessities  of  an  impoverished  and  well 
nigh  heart  broken  people,  whose  industries  so  sorely  needed  the  pro- 
tection ot  peace.  Chaos,  the  first  born,  spread  her  wings  in  flight, 
.bearing  her  black  daughter  Erebus  with  her  whilst  her  nobler  progeny 
Day  and  iEther  began  to  emerge  full  of  hope  and  loving  promise  upon 
the  face  of  "  broad  breasted  Earth;"  calming  and  soothing  the  rest- 
less surgings  of  Civil  War.  After  gloomy  Tartarus,  the  Greek  Poet 
tells  us,  came  Love.     Will  it  come  to  us  in  our  re-creation  ? 

My  faith  is  that  of  those  who  believe  that  all  human  events — of 
nations  as  of  individuals — are  wisely  as  well  as  kindly  ordered  by  the 
Great  Kuler  ot  All  for  the  best  interest  of  His  creatures,  and  so  th^  the 
very  wrath  of  man  is  made  to  praise  Him.  Bitter  to  my  taste  as  the 
results  of  this  Civil  War  were,  day  after  day  has  reconciled  me  to 
them  and  convinced  me  of  the  wisdom  of  cheerful  submission  to 
the  will  of  Him  who  brought  them  about.  The  Union  of  these 
States  has  been  preserved  and  declared  indissoluble  ;  a  great  and  dis- 
turbing Constitutional  question  has  been  finally  settled  ;  and  slavery 
has  been  forever  abolished,  no  longer  to  tarnish  the  fair  fame  of 
the  great,  free  Republic.  Because  it  was  involved  in  the  question 
of  Constitutional  right  I  fought  four  years  in  its  defence ;  on 
the  honor  of  my  manhood,  I  assure  you,  though  my  hairs  have 
since  become  white,  that  I  would  fight  eight  years  against  the  attempt 
to  reinstate  it  in  my  country.  [Great  applause.]  I  do  not  believe 
there  is  one  man  to  the  hundred  in  all  the  South  whose  sentiments  are 
not  the  same  ;  I  am  sure  there  is  not  in  the  land  of  my  nativity  and 
my  unchanging  love — North   Carolina. 

I  thank  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  my  audience  most  earnestly  for 
their  presence  and  attention  ;  I  thank  you.  Union  Soldiers  of  Massa- 
chusetts, for  this  opportunity  of  saying  in  your  midst  a  word  in  behalf 
of  those  who  fought  and  suffered,  and  lost.  [Long  continued  applause.] 


APR        1953 


